Criticism of Orientalists' Textual Controversies about the Last Three Verses of Surah Qāriʿah: From the Claim of Being Added to the Claim of a New Reading

The topics of text criticism are among the topics that have attracted the attention of some Quranic researchers, and in this regard, some have tried to examine the text of the Qur’an based on the methods of this knowledge. Those verses of the Qur’an that contain unique content have attracted special attention due to their special nature. In this context, the 9th verse of Surah Qāriʿah is one of the verses that has been discussed a lot. Based on its analysis, some such as Fisher and Wensbro have claimed that the two verses after the ninth verse were added to the surah at a later time. This is while some others like Belami, although they do not believe in the distortion of this surah, but they claim the existence of taṣḥīf in the ninth verse of this surah. In this research, with a descriptive-analytical-critical method, the views of these Orientalists regarding the ninth verse of Surah Qāriʿah and the conclusions they have drawn from it have been evaluated, and it is shown that the claim of taḥrīf or taṣḥīf (distortion or revision) regarding the last verses of Surah Qāriʿah is a baseless claim and does not go beyond mere hypothesis.